Public Safety Lte over Distributed Antenna Systems

First responders for Public Safety (PS) require seamless roaming, high data rates, and immediate access to voice, video and data applications. The Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) macro-network is often unable to provide these services satisfactorily within buildings. Currently, the PSCR is in the process of developing standards for the PS LTE signal communication. To that end, they have developed a three-phase plan that involves creating network test plans, deploying equipment and executing the tests. As a part of this project, we deployed an indoor Distributed Antenna System (DAS) fed by an LTE small cell. We achieved connectivity in the test area (DLC building of CU Boulder) by distributing the public safety 700 MHz LTE signal from the small cell via the DAS. This particular research is unique because the test networks of the developers (in-building Wireless service providers) so far have not deployed the 700 MHz LTE signal over a DAS or fed the DAS with a small cell, which proved to provide the best performance. In order to quantify that, we analyzed nine Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which represent quality, coverage and throughput to demonstrate the ability of the DAS and other systems such as a discrete antenna system and a Cell-On-Wheels (COW) site. Table of